The 7-mile roundtrip hike is not easy, but it is definitely worth it.
If you cannot make the hike, experience the memorial, observation deck and entrance of the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park with this 360º video.
The Dove brand sheepishly admitted Saturday that it had “missed the mark” with a not-so-vaguely racist advertisement that made it the latest target of consumer rage.
But angry and befuddled Dove lovers spent the weekend wondering what mark Dove was trying to hit in the first place.
The ire-inducing advertisement was released Saturday afternoon. The first frame shows a dark-skinned woman in what appears to be a bathroom, a bottle of Dove body wash in the lower right-hand corner of the frame.
In subsequent frames, the woman reaches down and lifts up her shirt (and apparently the rest of her skin/costume) to reveal a smiling white woman.
Offended social media users erupted, and the company quickly apologized. But Dove’s two-sentence Twitter note and a slightly longer message on Facebook left it unclear what exactly the ad was trying to convey.
An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.
Unilever, Dove’s parent company, did not respond to Washington Post requests for comment on the ad.
The vacuum of information was filled on social media by people peppering the company with comments and rhetorical questions, none of them good.
Was Dove saying that inside every black woman is a smiling, redheaded white woman? Was Dove invoking the centuries-old stereotype that black is dirty and white is pure? Or that black skin can or should be cleansed away? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Did Dove really believe that the ad would make more people of color want to buy its products?
“What exactly were yall going for?” a self-described Dove consumer said on the company’s Facebook page. “What was the mark . . . I mean anyone with eyes can see how offensive this is. Not one person on your staff objected to this? Wow. Will not be buying your products anymore.”
Others wondered whether the problem was a lack of diversity at Dove.
By Monday morning, the hashtag #BoycottDove was spreading on Twitter.
“The short video was intended to convey that Dove body wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong,” the brand said Monday in a statement to Reuters.
A copy of the video captured by a Twitter user before Dove took it down showed three women, not two. In the end, the white woman removes her shirt, revealing a brown woman. But the screen captures were the most widely disseminated images of the ad, which sparked a spreading backlash on Monday morning.
Model Munroe Bergdorf and other critics pointed to historical examples of racist ads about soap so effective that it apparently washes the melanin right out of your skin.
The marketing conundrum is, of course, not limited to the 62-year-old maker of soaps and body washes. Earlier this year, the German skin-care company Nivea was dinged for a deodorant ad that declared “White Is Purity.”
As The Washington Post’s Amy B Wang wrote, there was a loud outcry from consumers, who called the ad campaign “horrendous” and a “#prnightmare.” A white-supremacist group even posted on the company’s Facebook page: “We enthusiastically support this new direction your company is taking. I’m glad we can all agree that #WhiteIsPurity.”
Still, this latest predicament was a curious one for Dove, a beauty company that has a 13-year-old marketing campaign centered on rejecting standard, racially insular notions of beauty in its commercials. On its website, Dove touts the “Real Beauty Pledge,” a vow to feature “real women of different ages, sizes, ethnicities, hair color, type or style.”
The brand recently paid producer/screenwriter Shonda Rhimes to make mini films celebrating that theme. Rhimes has created several TV shows that feature minority women as lead characters.
In May, Rhimes produced a short film for Dove about the woman who started the “Fat Girls Dance” group. “It’s incredible to watch these ladies go from scared fat girls to, you know, completely amazing warrior fat girls,” Cathleen Meredith, the group’s founder, says in the video. “I think the entire model of what beauty is needs to be thrown completely out, and we need to start defining what beauty is for ourselves.”
Dove’s marketing campaign has been criticized by people who believe that feminism and women’s empowerment shouldn’t be used as marketing tools to persuade people to buy shower foam. As Time wrote in 2013, “Beauty companies like Dove and Pantene capitalize on feminist messages to hawk you products they’ve convinced you need.”
The article went on to say:
One could argue that messages of gender equality are important enough that it doesn’t matter if they precede ad copy for a shampoo company. But that line of thinking conveniently misses the point, particularly when it’s beauty companies who are using feminism to sell products.
Brands like Dove and Pantene have made millions by preying on women’s insecurities and convincing them they need to buy products to meet societal standards of beauty: sure, you’re beautiful just the way you are, but use our products and you can be even more beautiful.
The ethics of feminism-centered marketing campaigns aside, Saturday’s ad was not the first time Dove’s users felt that it had missed the mark. In May, Dove released six limited-edition bottles of body wash in British markets — some squat and curvy, some tall and lean — that were meant to represent variations of the female form. It advertised the bottles using the phrase “beauty breaks the mould.”
Dove’s new packaging raises a number of questions: Do all the bottles have the same amount of product? Are you supposed to buy the one that looks like you? Are you allowed to buy the ones that don’t look like you? Are we gearing up for a “Divergent”-style dystopia in which society is divided according to soap format?
Zimmerman expressed the same confusion that irate Dove users showed this weekend: “But the most important question is: What, exactly, is the point supposed to be?”
A new partnership between HubSpot and video-marketing automation platform TwentyThree is the most recent testament to the growing power of video as a marketing tool. Consumers crave visual content more than ever before — and their taste for video continues to increase.
According to a study by Wistia, people spend more than double the time on web pages with video that they do on pages without video. And yet a study by Demand Metric found that less than 10 percent of companies surveyed were incorporating that highly actionable viewing data into their marketing automation or CRM systems.
If your business is among those nine out of 10 video marketing laggards, you’re missing out on the chance to create important emotional connections with potential customers. Here are some of the reasons you should change gears now:
Video lives and breathes.
Which is more memorable — meeting someone in person or seeing his or her picture on Facebook?
For most people, the more memorable experience is probably the former. The experience of striking up a new acquaintance in person has more capacity to elicit real emotion. Brands are always striving to reach that same level of trust; and building an emotional connection is the best way to grab attention and create authentic, lasting bonds.
Until everyone owns a virtual reality headset, video is going to be the only way to truly capture multiple layers of human emotion. Not only can a piece of video be sad or thrilling, but it’s a medium that also persuades audiences to be engaged. Just as you would during a live conversation with another person, as a viewer of video, you’re constantly scanning the faces, gestures and body language of the people on screen to better understand what they’re trying to tell you.
You can appealing to humans, not just prospects.
Consider two tools that airlines use to communicate safety information: Would you rather read a 2D print pamphlet in the seat back in front of you or watch a video with music involving actors and stunts? Both mediums contain the same information, but video is almost universally preferred because of its intrinsically human qualities.
Take a look at this Red Bull commercial, for example. While it breaks many traditional advertising rules (the brand name isn’t even mentioned until 23 seconds into the 29-second spot, for one thing), it ultimately wins over audiences by juxtaposing athletic feats with emotional displays of smiles, laughter and hugs.
Pretty effective, right? Now, let’s explore how video used at each stage of the buyer’s journey can have the same effect on your customers.
1. You can tempt them into the funnel. The first step in the buyer journey is awareness. All potential customers have a basic problem they want to solve, whether they know it or not. As they research general information about your product, you can deploy several types of videos to clarify your value proposition and introduce your brand as a promising partner.
Educational videos, such as this one we created for the Special Olympics, focus less on the company or product and more on the bigger picture or industry to illuminate the need that the brand hopes to fill. You can post educational videos on your website, blog and social channels; run them as ads; or send them to potential customers via email.
Explainer videos, such as this one for our client BurgerFi, offer more of an overview of your particular business. They outline the problem it aims to solve, the ways in which your product or service can solve it and the reasons why your team is right for the job. Explainer videos belong anywhere that allows video content.
Commercial videos are typically used as online or televised ads, just as you’d expect. A sharp, engaging commercial can instantly capture your targets’ attention and highlight some of the solutions that your brand offers that they may not have considered before.
2. You can give them something intriguing to consider. Once people have a clear understanding of the problem being addressed, they’ll begin to analyze different potential solutions. You can help them understand why your brand is the right fit by employing two styles of video.
Product videos can live on your site to demonstrate why your product or service is superior to the competition. They might appear on a product page or be incorporated into a stand-alone ad, and they’re great for retargeting someone who has visited your page previously but didn’t convert.
Tutorial or FAQ videos are useful for showcasing the many benefits of your solution. They effectively demonstrate why enlisting your services or buying your product is going to meet customers’ needs and exceed their expectations. If your product is complex, you can create in-depth tutorial videos to highlight your product’s ease of use in an engaging and highly accessible way. For example, Evernote posts how-to videos on its YouTube channel that walk viewers through how to use the tool.
3. You can help them make a wise decision. At the decision stage, buyers have decided that they do have a problem and need to find a way to solve it. They’ve researched all of the options available to them and are nearly ready to make a decision. Now, it’s your job to convince them that your company is the one to choose.
In addition to some of the videos mentioned above, a video introducing your team, such as this one we produced for T.J.Maxx, is a great addition to your blog or « About Us » page. Featuring testimonial videos on your client page, blog or homepage can also be a powerful way to drive conversions.
Customers are especially trusting of other people who have had experience with your business. Eighty-four percent of people surveyed said they held online reviews in the same high regard as personal recommendations of friends, family and co-workers, according to BrightLocal’s annual Local Consumer Review Survey 2016. And that figure isn’t likely to decline: This stat has increased year after year since the survey was first conducted in 2010.
And . . . that’s a wrap!
No matter what type of video you’re employing or where it fits into your sales funnel, all videos should feature a few key elements:
First, high-quality content is a must. Your video is a reflection of your brand, so it should be polished and authentic, to instill confidence in your visitors.
Next, a call to action is vital to move potential customers further through the funnel. Experiment by placing your call to action in different locations within each video to find out which sees the most engagement. Finally, taking care that your messaging is clear and concise will ensure that viewers can easily digest your video in a single viewing, meaning your investment in a great marketing tool won’t go to waste when they click away after 30 seconds.
Overall, when it comes to customer relationship management, video is the surest route to building trust and real, human connections. So, above all else, make sure you capture accurate viewing data for your online videos, no matter which channel or platform people watch them on. The levels of engagement that each one attracts will provide invaluable data you can analyze to inform future campaigns and tweak current initiatives, to achieve the kind of results and return on investment you seek.
Coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants are responsible for about one-third of America’s carbon dioxide emissions. When the Clean Power Plan was unveiled in 2015, it was expected to cut power sector emissions 32 percent by 2030, relative to 2005. While many states are already shifting away from coal power for economic reasons, experts say scrapping the rule could slow that transition.
Environmental groups and several states plan to challenge the repeal proposal in federal courts, arguing against Mr. Pruitt’s move on both scientific and economic grounds.
Industry groups cheered the announcement, but have also indicated that they would prefer that Mr. Pruitt replace the Clean Power Plan with a new, more modest regulation on power plants in order to blunt any court challenges. The E.P.A. is still required to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions because of a 2009 legal opinion known as the endangerment finding.
“We have always believed that there is a better way to approach greenhouse gas emissions reductions,” Karen A. Harbert, the president of the Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute said in a statement. “We welcome the opportunity for business to be at the table with the E.P.A. and other stakeholders to develop an approach that lowers emissions, preserves America’s energy advantage, and respects the bounds of the Clean Air Act.”
How does Trump plan to roll back the Clean Power Plan?
In order to regulate pollution from existing power plants, the E.P.A. has to set goals for each state based on what’s technically feasible and cost-effective. Under the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration set targets by assuming utilities could improve the efficiency of their coal plants, shift from coal to cleaner natural gas, and add more renewable energy to their grids.
But Mr. Obama’s approach was controversial, because the E.P.A. assumed utilities could reduce emissions at individual plants by taking actions outside of those plants — say, by replacing coal plants with wind farms elsewhere. Industry groups and more than two dozen states challenged this move in court, arguing that the E.P.A. can only look at cleanup measures that can be undertaken at the plants themselves.
Mr. Pruitt is proposing to repeal the Clean Power Plan on this basis. He also argued that the Obama administration overstated the benefits of its rule by factoring in the gains from curbing global warming in other countries as well as from reducing harmful air pollutants other than carbon dioxide.
If Mr. Pruitt does end up pursuing a replacement rule, it would almost certainly be confined to inside-the-fenceline measures, like upgrading coal-plant boilers. Previous E.P.A. analyses found that such upgrades would lead to a roughly 4 percent increase in efficiency at coal plants.
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What does this mean for emissions?
While the repeal of the Clean Power Plan offers a reprieve for America’s coal industry, it is unlikely to halt the decline of coal altogether. Even in the absence of the rule, many utilities around the country have opted to shift to natural gas, wind and solar, driven by cost concerns and state-level policies. Many states, like California and New York, are already moving ahead of the targets set by the Clean Power Plan as they develop their own climate policies.
Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, noted that his state has plans to exceed the goals that had been set under the Clean Power Plan because the state is closing coal plants early and developing jobs in wind and other renewables.
“We have dramatically cleaner air and we are saving money. My question to the E.P.A. would be, ‘Which part of that don’t you like?’ ” Mr. Hickenlooper said.
A new analysis by the research firm Rhodium Group estimated that United States electricity emissions are currently on track to fall 27 to 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, roughly in the range of what the Clean Power Plan originally envisioned, even if the regulation is repealed.
But John Larsen, the author of the Rhodium Group analysis, estimated that if Mr. Obama’s policies had remained in place, as many as 21 states would have had to make deeper reductions than they are currently expected to do without the rule — including Texas, West Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and emissions most likely would have fallen further than the 32 percent originally envisioned.
“So for certain states,” Mr. Larsen wrote, “today’s announcement is a big deal.”
Experts also note that the Clean Power Plan would have prevented a rebound in coal use in case natural gas unexpectedly became more expensive or various policies to promote renewable energy were blunted. The repeal comes on the heels of a proposal by the Department of Energy to subsidize coal and nuclear plants by revamping electricity markets.
Jody Freeman, director of the environmental law program at Harvard Law School, said the Energy Department proposal combined with the Clean Power Plan repeal signals the Trump administration is putting its thumb on the scale in favor of fossil fuels.
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“You see a pretty powerful message. Disavow any effort to control greenhouse gases in the power sector, and instead, intervene in the market to promote coal. It’s a wow,” she said.
Mr. Pruitt’s proposal for repeal will now have to go through a formal public-comment period before being finalized, a process that could take months. Mr. Pruitt will also ask the public for comment on what a replacement rule should look like, but the E.P.A. has not offered a timeline.
Environmental groups and Democratic-controlled states are expected to challenge these moves on multiple fronts.
“Every step of this, from the repeal to the replacement, will involve a lot of time-consuming litigation, and we could ultimately see this end up in the Supreme Court,” said Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University.
That raises the question of whether the Trump administration can craft and finalize a replacement rule by the 2020 election. Failure to do so, some industry groups worry, could allow a new administration to start over and impose a more stringent climate plan on power plants.
Partly for that reason, many states are already preparing for the prospect of tougher carbon regulations down the road.
Consider Arkansas, one of the states that challenged the Clean Power Plan in court. Ted J. Thomas, the chairman of the Arkansas Public Service commission, says that his state is nonetheless in the process of shifting from coal to cheaper natural gas. The initial rule also convinced the state to start exploring clean-energy options, like expanding wind power, promoting the use of smart meters, and developing a working group to look at carbon capture technology for coal plants.
“Even if they repeal the Clean Power Plan, or replace it with something that doesn’t require us to do very much, you still have to reckon with the fact that ultimately regulations on carbon are coming,” Mr. Thomas said. “So we need to develop options to deal with that other than sticking our heads in the sand and hoping we can just file lawsuits forever.”
“You can either be prepared or unprepared,” he added, “and that’s a pretty simple choice.”
Sunday’s NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Indianapolis Colts was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Eastern time. By 1:24 p.m., Vice President Pence’s official Twitter account had posted this.
I stand with @POTUS Trump, I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem. pic.twitter.com/B0zP5M41MQ
That graphic — complete with the appropriate social media information — was the tail end of a thread of tweets that conveyed the same message. The thread began at 1:08 p.m., without a typo to be found.
This reinforces the obvious conclusion that Pence’s appearance at the game and his well-coordinated exit from it was staged. It was a Colts-Niners game — pitting his home-state team against the team from the liberal hotbed where the players’ protests over racial violence began. Pence’s press pool was informed that, in essence, there probably wasn’t any reason for them to join him inside the stadium. Why get out of your press van when Pence would go in, take a quick patriotic picture, and leave?
As President Trump said on Twitter on Monday morning, Pence’s trip to Indianapolis for this game was long-planned. An event that necessitated some modicum of effort and expense, for one reason: to reinforce the divide at the center of the protests, a divide that overlaps almost completely with racial politics.
An Indianapolis Colt player kneels on the field Oct. 1 during warm-ups before an NFL game against the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle. (Elaine Thompson/Associated Press)
A lot of emphasis has been placed on the cost of the trip, for understandable reasons. CNN figured that the flight alone cost about $200,000 on net — $242,500 in flying time from Las Vegas (where Pence was holding an event in the wake of the massacre there last week) and back to Los Angeles (where he had a political event scheduled). An Air Force Two flight from Vegas to L.A. alone would have cost about $45,000, so: about $200,000.
A spokesman for the vice president told The Washington Post in a statement that this was actually a cost savings, because Pence would otherwise have flown to D.C. for the night instead of Indianapolis. “Instead,” the statement read, “he made a shorter trip to Indiana for a game that was on his schedule for several weeks.”
But CNN’s analysis excludes a lot of other costs, of course. As the Indianapolis Star reported, Pence’s appearance introduced another level of security for fans attending the game, prompting the Colts to encourage people to show up early to navigate that security. That extra security cost extra money — as did Pence’s travel from the airport to the stadium and back.
There’s a ripple through a city whenever a president or vice president visits: street closures, added security, added nuisances. The full costs of those visits are probably incalculable, because they have effects beyond the places directly affected. In this case, it’s worth remembering that the ripple was for the purpose of allowing Pence to spend less than an hour at the stadium so he could spend 30 minutes bragging about his principled stand on social media.
A few hours after Pence’s stage-managed hand-wringing on Twitter — the digital equivalent of the disappointed head-shake he perfected on the campaign trail — Trump took to his favorite social-media platform to address a different subject.
“Nobody could have done what I’ve done for Puerto Rico with so little appreciation,” Trump said. “So much work!”
It was an odd tweet for a lot of reasons, including that it framed Trump, once again, as one of the victims of the ongoing disaster on that island. But it also reminded Americans that, as Pence was saving us money by not flying all the way across the country, federal authorities on the island were scrambling to pour resources into fixing a problem that, to some extent, resulted from a lack of adequate planning from the government.
The time of the president and vice president are valuable, and what they do and where they go reflect the things that are important to them. You can always scrounge up more money; you can’t create more time. And Trump’s visit to Puerto Rico last week lasted only a few more hours than Pence’s trip to Indianapolis. Of the 520-odd cumulative days that Trump and Pence have been in power, one was spent traveling to Puerto Rico and one was spent going to Indianapolis. Time is spent in other ways, too: As we’ve noted before, the president has spent a lot more of his time tweeting about the NFL than he has the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
Pence’s flight to Indianapolis was planned for weeks; his social-media response ready to go with a graphic immediately after he left the stadium. It’s an impressive level of preparation for an administration, as it turns out, focused on goading the president’s base into anger at black athletes.
The trip wasn’t free, and the idea that it was a cost savings is ridiculous. But the really galling aspect of Pence’s jaunt was that it demonstrated the sort of issue on which the administration is deliberate about having its act together.
When Democrats struck a tentative deal last month with the president to protect « dreamers » from deportations, they were skeptical that it would turn into anything real.
That skepticism was well founded. Either President Trump has changed his mind about shielding from deportation thousands of young undocumented immigrants in the country, or he never really wanted to do so in the first place. We know this because late Sunday, the administration released a wish list of immigration principles it wants in any deal. No. 1 is funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Except, the wall is a manifestation of everything Democrats despise about Trump and his hard-line immigration stances, simplistic policy ideas and identity-focused politics. Basically, it’s a total nonstarter for Democrats and their base. Trump knows this well.
He has spent the better part of this year pushing his wall right up to the edge of negotiations with Congress, only to back off at the last minute because Democrats refused to budge. In April, Congress was up against a deadline to keep the government open. Trump wanted Congress to make a down payment to build his border wall. Senate Democrats threatened to filibuster any spending bill that funded it, which would effectively force the government to shut down on Republicans’ watch. Trump backed off.
The exact same scene played out in September’s budget negotiations: Trump demanded funding for a wall. Democrats threatened to walk away. Trump backed off.
The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built.
Congressional leaders haven’t ruled out that Trump will ask for wall funding in December, when it’s time to pass yet another spending bill. They have no idea how serious he’ll be about fighting for it, but it’s a threat they have to take seriously because it’s one of the policy issues that could cause a government shutdown. And now, Trump is pulling out his wall card for this deal to give dreamers deportation protections that he, himself, is removing.
“The administration can’t be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement Sunday evening, referring to the wish list.
Trump could be derailing a deal to protect dreamers for a wall that he hasn’t been serious about getting built. He’s not even pretending anymore that Mexico will pay for it. He has backed off every opportunity he has had to force Congress to include money for it. And he waffled on whether the wall was even seriously discussed when he and top Democrats announced their late-night September deal to protect dreamers.
Democratic leaders left the White House that Sunday night sure that a wall wasn’t part of any deal. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders then said it was. Trump said the wall would come later. Then he said, « If there’s not a wall, we’re doing nothing. »
While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to.
The whole deal devolved into murkiness that raised Democrats’ suspicions that they weren’t going to have a trustworthy negotiator on the other end of the table. Sure enough, there haven’t been any significant developments on a dreamer deal since then — until Sunday, a development that could very well end the deal.
The thing is, Trump has very few friends in Washington who want to help him build this wall. Mainstream Republicans don’t like the wall, either. Some of the more hard-line members of the party like the idea, but nearly every border Republican is opposed. They argue that money could be better spent on more technologically advanced border security tools.
Plus, using untold billions of dollars for building a wall along 1,900 miles of mostly desert — without a check from Mexico — would be a fiscally irresponsible thing to do for the party that thinks it’s the fiscally responsible one.
House Republicans voted through a $1.6 billion down payment this summer, and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) put out a flashy video championing it. But they did all of this knowing the wall was dead on arrival in the Senate and that they wouldn’t be forced to actually write that check.
It’s hard to overstate what a barrier Trump’s border wall has been for getting things done in Washington. It’s just as difficult to discern whether he’s serious about getting Congress to approve the wall. But by even bringing up the wall as part of a deal with Democrats, it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want to make one.
The Dove brand sheepishly admitted that it had “missed the mark” with a not-so-vaguely racist advertisement that has made it the latest target of consumer rage.
But many angry and befuddled Dove lovers spent the weekend wondering what mark Dove was trying to hit in the first place.
The ire-inducing advertisement was released Saturday afternoon. The first image shows a dark-skinned woman in what appears to be a bathroom, a bottle of Dove body wash in the lower right-hand corner of the picture.
In subsequent frames, the woman reaches down and lifts up her shirt (and apparently the rest of her skin/costume) to reveal a smiling white woman.
Offended Dove users erupted, and the company quickly apologized. But the two-sentence Twitter note and a slightly longer message on Facebook left it unclear what exactly the ad was trying to convey. Tweets capturing the video ad show the white woman removing her shirt to reveal a brown woman, but the most widely-circulated images just show frames of the black woman and the white woman.
Unilever, Dove’s parent company, did not respond to Washington Post requests for comment.
An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.
The vacuum of information was filled by people on social media who peppered the company with comments and rhetorical questions, none of them good.
Was Dove saying that inside every black woman is a smiling redheaded white woman? Was Dove invoking the centuries-old stereotype that black is dirty and white is pure? Or that black skin can or should be cleansed away?
And perhaps the biggest question of all: Did Dove really believe that the ad would make more people of color want to buy its products?
“What exactly were yall going for?,” one self-described Dove consumer said on the company’s Facebook page. “What was the mark . . . I mean anyone with eyes can see how offensive this is. Not one person on your staff objected to this? Wow. Will not be buying your products anymore.”
Others wondered whether the problem was a lack of diversity at Dove. They pointed to historical examples of racist ads about soap so good that it apparently washes the melanin right out of your skin.
The marketing conundrum is, of course, not limited to the 62-year-old maker of soaps and body washes.
Earlier this year, the German skin-care company Nivea was dinged for a deodorant ad that declared “White Is Purity.”
As The Washington Post’s Amy B Wang wrote, there was a loud outcry from consumers, who called the ad campaign “horrendous” and a “#prnightmare.” A white-supremacist group even posted on the company’s Facebook page: “We enthusiastically support this new direction your company is taking. I’m glad we can all agree that #WhiteIsPurity.”
Still, this weekend’s predicament was a curious one for Dove, a beauty company that has a 13-year-old marketing campaign centered on rejecting standard, racially insular notions of beauty in its commercials.
On its website, Dove touts the “Real Beauty Pledge,” a vow to feature “real women of different ages, sizes, ethnicities, hair color, type or style.”
It recently paid Shonda Rhimes to make mini films celebrating the theme. The producer and screenwriter has created several TV shows that feature minority women as lead characters.
In May, Rhimes produced a short film for Dove about the woman who started the “Fat Girls Dance” group.
“It’s incredible to watch these ladies go from scared fat girls to, you know, completely amazing warrior fat girls,” Cathleen Meredith says in the video. “I think the entire model of what beauty is needs to be thrown completely out and we need to start defining what beauty is for ourselves.”
Dove’s marketing campaign has been criticized by people who believe that feminism and women’s empowerment shouldn’t be used as marketing tools to persuade people to buy shower foam.
As Time wrote in 2013, “Beauty companies like Dove and Pantene capitalize on feminist messages to hawk you products they’ve convinced you need.”
The article went on to say:
One could argue that messages of gender equality are important enough that it doesn’t matter if they precede ad copy for a shampoo company. But that line of thinking conveniently misses the point, particularly when it’s beauty companies who are using feminism to sell products.
Brands like Dove and Pantene have made millions by preying on women’s insecurities and convincing them they need to buy products to meet societal standards of beauty: sure, you’re beautiful just the way you are, but use our products and you can be even more beautiful.
The ethics of feminism-centered marketing campaigns aside, Saturday’s ad was not the first time Dove’s users felt that it had missed the mark.
In May, Dove released six limited-edition bottles of body wash in British markets — some squat and curvy, some tall and lean — that were meant to represent variations of the female form. It advertised the bottles using the phrase “beauty breaks the mould.”
“Dove’s new packaging raises a number of questions: Do all the bottles have the same amount of product?” she wrote. “Are you supposed to buy the one that looks like you? Are you allowed to buy the ones that don’t look like you? Are we gearing up for a “Divergent”-style dystopia in which society is divided according to soap format?”
And Zimmerman expressed the same confusion that irate Dove users had this weekend.
“But the most important question is: What, exactly, is the point supposed to be?”
For Jacob Pattengill, center manager at Select Physical Therapy in Cape Girardeau, the capabilities of the new technology were at once exciting and humbling.
« The truth kind of slapped me in the face, » he said.
Using traditional evaluative methods, he said, he and his colleagues were good at spotting physiological vulnerabilities. The dorsaVi and ViPerform Athletic Movement Index were something else, he said. A paradigm shift.
« There’s nothing like it on the market, » he said. « This is ‘Star Trek,’ cutting-edge stuff. »
The systems use a series of 3-D motion-tracking tools to evaluate movement and identify weaknesses in an athlete’s lower body. The data produced then can be used to assess risk of injury or track recovery.
Although the technology is still relatively new, Pattengill said the system is being used by professional athletes including NFL teams. The Southeast Missouri State University Redhawks men’s and women’s basketball teams are among Select Physical Therapy’s clients.
« As a sports-medicine physician for more than 25 years, I have seen very few tools that have the impact for injury prevention and rehabilitation of sports injuries that ViPerform testing and the Play it Safe Program provides, » Redhawks team physician Jimmy D. Bowen said in a news release. « It is a blessing to our athletic community that Select Physical Therapy provides this service. The goal for the future would be that all athletics with lower-extremity and back issues not be returned to play without this testing and program. »
Pattengill said the test results also can be used by healthy athletes to help focus on physical weaknesses to improve performance, not just reduce injury risk.
But the value in injury prevention, he said, can be hugely beneficial for an athlete.
« There are 300,000 ACL tears in the country every year, » he said. « The data is just staggering. If it was anything not sports-related it would be an epidemic in this country. »
The tests take roughly an hour in most cases, and results are available immediately, Pattengill said.
« If there’s, say, a high-school athlete trying to make a decision whether or not he’s ready to play a Friday-night football game, we can get that determination right there that day, » Pattengill said. « It’s a legal competitive edge, that’s what it is. »
Spectrum Transformer relocating
Spectrum Transformer will relocate from its current location at 624 Commercial St. to a larger facility at 905 Enterprise St. in Cape Girardeau.
Spectrum Transformer, which has operated in Cape Girardeau since 1987, assembles compact transformers for audio electronics and microphones.
The new facility will be 6,000 square-feet, allowing the company to expand and hire more employees, Lorimont Place Ltd. commercial broker Tom Kelsey said in a news release.
The new building previously was occupied by Newmayer Equipment.
The Bank of Missouri video wins national award
The Bank of Missouri won Best in Show among banks with assets of $1 billion to $5 billion for a promotional video called « 125+ Random Acts of Kindness » during the ABA Bank Marketing Video Awards in September.
« We did not create this video to win an award. Rather, we created it in honor of our bank’s 125th anniversary, with the idea in mind of ‘paying it forward’ to our great customers and communities, » The Bank of Missouri marketing manager Lauren Keith Heuring said in a news release. « More than 350 employees participated in doing random acts of kindness, and we are humbled to be awarded for doing something our bankers do every day — show kindness to others. This is a huge honor for our marketing team and our bank. »
« Video marketing is a game changer and a key strategy for customer engagement in today’s digital age, » Jim Edrington, executive vice president of ABA’s Professional Development Group, said in a news release. « From entertaining to informing to inspiring, this year’s winners took highly creative approaches to tell their story and build brand awareness. »
Broker/owner Cheryl Chandler and managing broker Shannon Kyle with CherylCO Real Estate in Rifle recently completed the seminar « Video Marketing: In-depth strategies to using videos in marketing and social media marketing concepts, » presented by Tyler Kemp, regional marketing specialist for Guild Mortgage. Chandler and Kyle can be contacted at 970-625-4441.
Amanda Schard joins Bay Equity Home Loans
Amanda Schard has joined Bay Equity Home Loans (Glenwood Springs) as a loan coordinator. Schard was born and raised in Glenwood Springs and has spent the last 10 years working as operations manager with ANB Bank. She will work alongside loan officer Ryan Parker. Schard can be reached at 970-309-6850 or aschard@bayeq.com.
5 Things To Know About Using The Cloud In Business
DTCI presents a free Lunch and Learn titled 5 Things to Know About Using The Cloud in Business from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 11, at Hotel Denver’s The Loft.
Topics include: What is the cloud? Who is taking care of backup? Is the Cloud important to my business? Should I worry about security in the cloud? Can the cloud save me money?
Call 970-930-6068 to register.
John Ward named ANB Bank regional president
John Ward has been promoted to regional president of ANB Bank’s newly formed Colorado Mountain Region of banking centers. The Mountain Region consists of the Rifle, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Aspen, Eagle and Avon markets. Originally, these mountain region markets and the bank’s Grand Junction and Telluride markets formed the bank’s Western Region.
Ward brings over 17 years of financial experience, including six years with ANB Bank, when he joined in 2011 as a community bank president for the Aspen branch, where he will continue to be located. Before that, he held the title of vice president at a Colorado financial institution. He also has previous experience as a relationship manager and credit analyst. Ward holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and attended the Pacific Coast Banking School.
Ward is a past president of the Aspen Rotary Club, is a member of the Aspen Fire Protection District’s board of directors, and is a board member of the Aspen Lacrosse Club. He also spends his time volunteering as a youth sports coach in the community for basketball, football and lacrosse.
